AskBiography Logo   Latest News  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Google Buzz  Became Fan - Facebook  Subscribe to RSSRSS   Bookmark and Share

Sinhalese people

Sinhalese people
Ethnic group
GroupSinhala
Population dateSinhalese
estimated - ~ 15,568,750
Main regionSri Lanka  13,876,245 (18 Districts)
United Kingdom~100,000 (2010)
Australia73,849 (2008)
Italy68,738 (2008)
Canada19,830 (2006)
US13,890 (2006)
Singapore12,000 (1993)
Malaysia10,000 (2009)
New Zealand7,257 (2006)
IndiaAt least 3,500

     Home | Ethnic Group | Sinhalese people



The Sinhalese are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group,forming the majority of Sri Lanka, constituting 74% of the Sri Lankan population. They number approximately 15 million in the world. They live mainly in central, south and west Sri Lanka. According to legend they are the descendants of the exiled Prince Vijaya who arrived from North-East India to Sri Lanka in 543 BCE. The Sinhalese identity is based on language, heritage and religion. The vast majority of Sinhalese are Theravada Buddhists and speak Sinhala, an Indo-Aryan language.


Warning: simplexml_load_file(http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/-/Sinhalese/people?orderby=viewCount&max-results=10) [function.simplexml-load-file]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 410 Gone in /home/askbio/public_html/index_bio.php on line 257

Warning: simplexml_load_file() [function.simplexml-load-file]: I/O warning : failed to load external entity "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/-/Sinhalese/people?orderby=viewCount&max-results=10" in /home/askbio/public_html/index_bio.php on line 257

Fatal error: Call to a member function children() on a non-object in /home/askbio/public_html/index_bio.php on line 260